NEWS BRIEFS June 17, 2009

LAFAYETTE COUNTY
Robbery suspect caught; one remains at large
OXFORD – Officers from three agencies helped arrest one suspect on Monday in the June 11 armed robbery of an Oxford fast food restaurant.
After an inquiry pointed to Ralston Jannice and Mario Ruffin as suspects in the robbery of the Sisk Avenue Wendy’s restaurant, Oxford police secured warrants for both. They then traced Jannice to a hotel in Holly Springs, where he was arrested in cooperation with officers from the Holly Springs Police Department and the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department. Bond was not set.
Ruffin is at large. Anyone with information about his location is asked to call OPD at (662) 232-2400.LEE COUNTY
Prices to increase for school district meals
TUPELO – Breakfast and lunch prices will increase by 25 cents when Lee County students return to the school Aug. 6.
“We haven’t gone up in two years,” Susan Killens, the district’s child nutrition director, told members of the county school board at their Tuesday meeting. “We’re right in line with everybody in the area.”
Student breakfasts will rise from 75 cents to $1, elementary lunches will rise from $1.75 to $2, and junior high and high school lunches will go up from $2 to $2.25. For adults, breakfasts will rise just 20 cents, from $1.55 to $1.75. Adult lunches will increase from $2.75 to $3.
Killens said the new rates will generate an additional $15,000, which will help offset the loss of 12 cents per plate the district has experienced with rising food costs in the past couple of years.Oktibbeha County
Spring rains hurt state wheat harvest
STARKVILLE – Experts say Mississippi’s once-promising wheat harvest is now a disappointment and rainfall that started in mid-March and continued through May is to blame.
Farmers have harvested about 75 percent of the state’s 230,000 wheat acres, but officials with Mississippi State University Extension Service say some of the remaining acres will never be harvested due to flooding near the Yazoo River.
Erick Larson, MSU grain crops agronomist, says heavy rains saturated soils, reducing the grain yield and quality substantially.
The state had 520,000 acres of wheat last year.
Larson says producers planted just half that this year, primarily in response to high nitrogen prices. Nitrogen is used in wheat production.